But VRBO's website is always screwed up in one fashion or another.

You need to find out what this amount is - it may be worth it to pay the closing costs, obtain the lowest rate possible, and then let the loan ride for a while; or may make sense to take the lender credit and see what the market does over the next few years to hedge your risk.

You can work as hard as you want in this program, like i did following all instructions to the T, and be so naively optimistic that it will work by taking massive action that you ride it out for +5 years only to realize that you were better of betting onyourself from the get,and just doing it by yourself, especially if you are already a hands on type of person, lolGreatest scam, ever and the fact this is still happening and people are asking about Phil is beautiful at best, lol, only in America!!!

That’s about 1 in every 758 homes.July alone saw a 13% increase compared to last year, the highest monthly jump so far in 2025.What makes this more interesting—or worrisome—is the uneven geography:Alaska (↑55%), Rhode Island (↑51%), Utah and Wyoming (both ↑46%), and Colorado (↑41%) are seeing the sharpest increases.Per housing units, states like Nevada, Florida, Maryland, South Carolina, and Illinois are riding the foreclosure wave fastest.Contrast that with the macro picture:Inventory levels are swelling—active home listings are up almost 25% year-over-year—providing more opportunities for buyers.Mortgage rates dropped slightly, with 30-year fixed rates nudging down to 6.58%—the lowest point of 2025, but still elevated.And in a twist, the Federal Reserve is stuck between supporting housing and fending off inflation fueled by booming AI investments.So here’s my investor brain asking some real questions:Are these rises signaling local economic strain—not a national crisis—creating focused opportunities?

I suspect an uber ride from Tyson McGee airport to pigeon forge or Gatlinburg would be cost prohibitive.  

Let that appreciate until you can hit the former points, if it depreciates(very possible in short-term) ride it out, because if you can't ride it out you definitely cannot ride a highly levered/highly illiquid investment like RE.I am giving you billion-dollar strategy advice here.

On a bike ride I popped in chatted with a contractor.

Investors are on one side of the fence, renters the opposite, and house-hackers ride the fence.

They’ll grow up with the same friends, the same teachers, the same neighborhood streets to ride their bikes on.

Im looking to share my journey with someone that has experience building their portfolio by acquiring single family homes the old fashion way, getting a traditional loan in most cases with 3% down or 5%...